FROM A DOUBLE STANDARD TO A SILVER STANDARD 337
of value, circulated without any fixed ratio of exchange between them. The standard, therefore, was more of the nature of what Jevons called a parallel standard* than a double standard† That this want of ratio could not have worked without some detriment in practice is obvious. But it must be noted that there existed an alleviating circumstance in the curious contrivance by which the mohur and the rupee, though unrelated to each other, bore a fixed ratio to the dam, the copper coin of the Empire.‡ So that it is permissible to hold that, as a consequence of being fixed to the same thing, the two, the mohur and the rupee, circulated at a fixed ratio.
In Southern India, to which part the influence of the Moghuls had not extended, silver as a part of the currency system was quite unknown. The pagoda, the gold coin of the ancient Hindu kings, was the standard of value and also the medium of exchange, and continued to be so till the time of the East India Company.
The right of coinage, which the Moghuls always held as Inter jura Majestatis, § be it said to their credit, was exercised with due sense of responsibility. Never did the Moghul Emperors stoop to debase their coinage. Making allowance for the imperfect technology of coinage, the coins issued from the various Mints, situated even in the most distant parts of their Empire¶, did not materially deviate from the standard. The table
- Money and Mechanism of Exchange (1890), p. 95.
† Dr. P. Kelly’s view is that they circulated at their market ratio ( loc. cit. ) . On the other hand, Sir R. Temple says : “In ancient and mediaeval India the relative value of the coins of each metal was fixed by the State, and all were legal tender virtually without any formal limitation” (“General Monetary Practice in India,” Journal of the Institute of Bankers, Vol. II, p. 406). On another occasion he said :” The earliest Hindu currency was in gold with a single standard. The Mohammendans introduced silver, and in later times up to British rule there was a double standard, gold and silver” ( ibid., Vol. XV, p. 9). In contrast to this it may be noted that the Preamble to Currency Regulations XXXV of 1793 and other Currency Regulations of early date make it a point to emphasize that under pre-British regime there was no fixed ratio between the mohur and the rupee.
‡ Cf. Prof. S. V. Venkateswara, on “Moghul Currency and Coinage” in the Indian Journal of Economics, July, 1918, p. 169; and F. Atkinson, The Indian Currency Question (1894), p. 1.
§ According to the Mohammedan historian, Khafi Khan, it enraged the Emperor Aurangzeb when the East India Company in 1694 coined some rupees at Bombay “with the name of their impure king” ( Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. IV, p. 515).
¶ It is stated in the Imperial Gazetteer of India (Vol. IV., p. 514), that in the early days of the Moghul rule, there was only one Mint—at Delhi—which struck the Imperial coins. The Emperor Sher Sha was the first to introduce a plurality of Mints for coniage purposes—a practice continued and extended by the later emperors until between the reigns of Akbar and Bahadur Shah II the Mints numbered about 200. From the East India Moral and Material Progress Report for 1872-73 it is clear that not every Mint was open to the coinage of all three metals, gold, silver and copper; but that some Mints coined only gold, others silver, and the rest copper; (see Report, pp. 11-12).